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Category: Gillian Flynn

Gillian Flynn and her book Gone GirlWhere do I start? I want to keep this review short, but how can I? This book lives up to the reader-writer hype. I admit. I was put off by all the wide-eyed praises. As I read the story, I could feel myself being pulled into cryptic talk, lies, and murder.

So let me begin with themes. Let’s just get the literary devices on the table and how they affect the story.

Economy – the novel often visits the characters’ financial standings and how money [it] drives their emotions–a parallel of our reality. Flynn definitely established authenticity there.

Unreliable Narrator – my favorite theme throughout the novel is how the narrator’s are not trustworthy. I was immediately pulled into the story especially in the beginning with Nick’s sociopathic, Dexter Morgan-like demeanor.

Setting – obvious and well placed. Flynn illustrates setting quite nicely. The reader can see the opportunity and the ever changing city of New York and Carthage, Missouri. Flynn takes her characters to a small, slow point, which they have to recover, however, the madness of Nick and Amy Dunne take them into a spiral of deceit and wrathful daydreams.

Family – Universal. Readers can see the drawbacks of a dysfunctional household as well as one that’s “amazing”.

With some of the literary items listed (I’m sure there’s more), allow me to really say what I think:

This book was awesome. The emotional investment I had in this book…my goodness. I wanted to find Jules and Vincent, the hitmen from Pulp Fiction, to pay Nick Dunne a visit. Why not? The man would have been fine if he just told the truth in the beginning. Amy is right, he is a dummy. A big, damn dummy with a hoard of silver tongue fibs that can drive anyone crazy. Thing is Amy was already crazy.

Flynn, you got me. I was on Amy’s side until the bomb she dropped about the diary. I still felt like Nick needs a Ezekiel 25:17 speech. But Amy is crazy, bat crazy. By the way, I hate the phrase “fake it till you make it” and Flynn places it on the tongue of one of the most diabolical women in literature, an appropriate gesture.